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One year later in the cartoon industry
8 years ago
So,
I very recently passed the one year milestone as an animator in the TV cartoon industry, and after that time I came to the conclusion that it's not for me. Understand that I'm not talking about animation in general, I'm still very passionate about it and still have several long term personal projects that I want to see finished. I'm referring specifically to the job of an animator in western cartoons ( aka kids cartoons since its 90% of the tv animation production here in France ).
While its definitely not the worst job in the world and even far from the worst in the industry, it has been having a seriously bad impact on my motivation. The main problem with this part of the industry, to me, is the idea that you're not working on a creative project, but a damn PRODUCT, and thus it comes with ONE major downside: productivity.
Basically animators are expected to put out about 8 to 12 seconds of animation by the end of each day. You could argue that since the animation is in the form of puppet animation ( commonly referred to as flash animatio or cut-out animation) it should be easier for the animator to reach this goal by the end of the day, which is true. The real problems however are that, first, when you put out as much animation on a daily basis, it can't be good animation. its just the minimum viable quality, just to be able to churn out several hours of content within a year and as such you just can't be proud of what you produce as an animator, and thats why you'll never see any of the professional work i've done in the last year into my animation reel.
Second while puppet animation allows to do away with sketching, cleaning up and colouring characters, it doesn't remove the real challenge of animation : ANIMATING! Because the theory is still the same, whether you're in 2d, 3d, stop motion or whatever other technique. And animation is almost always an intricate puzzle to figure out, even after years of practice, just to make something look decent, and when you're given up to 12 seconds to animate within a day, it gets mentally exhausting after barely a couple weeks or month in a production.
Lastly, due to the nature of cheap tv animation, the production always suffers from rushed planning and pre production (and I have confirmation from peers in other studios that its the same everywhere) and thus, animators get to enjoy having to fix most of the issues that were not thought out in earlier stages of production ( or even worse, issues deliberetely ignored knowing it would be fixed by the animators ). Although on that last point, animators share the bad end of the stick with post production team.
Sorry for all that spoiled millenial venting garbage but I really needed to get this out of my chest. My motivation has been at an all time low this past year and I need to fix that. I think I'll try to approach another angle of the industry, ideally a bit more oriented developpement or pre production like storyboards, designs or even visual dev, who knows... I'll make an update if I ever do so.
Ps : I havent forgotten about those toonboom tuts I promised, I swear ;>
I very recently passed the one year milestone as an animator in the TV cartoon industry, and after that time I came to the conclusion that it's not for me. Understand that I'm not talking about animation in general, I'm still very passionate about it and still have several long term personal projects that I want to see finished. I'm referring specifically to the job of an animator in western cartoons ( aka kids cartoons since its 90% of the tv animation production here in France ).
While its definitely not the worst job in the world and even far from the worst in the industry, it has been having a seriously bad impact on my motivation. The main problem with this part of the industry, to me, is the idea that you're not working on a creative project, but a damn PRODUCT, and thus it comes with ONE major downside: productivity.
Basically animators are expected to put out about 8 to 12 seconds of animation by the end of each day. You could argue that since the animation is in the form of puppet animation ( commonly referred to as flash animatio or cut-out animation) it should be easier for the animator to reach this goal by the end of the day, which is true. The real problems however are that, first, when you put out as much animation on a daily basis, it can't be good animation. its just the minimum viable quality, just to be able to churn out several hours of content within a year and as such you just can't be proud of what you produce as an animator, and thats why you'll never see any of the professional work i've done in the last year into my animation reel.
Second while puppet animation allows to do away with sketching, cleaning up and colouring characters, it doesn't remove the real challenge of animation : ANIMATING! Because the theory is still the same, whether you're in 2d, 3d, stop motion or whatever other technique. And animation is almost always an intricate puzzle to figure out, even after years of practice, just to make something look decent, and when you're given up to 12 seconds to animate within a day, it gets mentally exhausting after barely a couple weeks or month in a production.
Lastly, due to the nature of cheap tv animation, the production always suffers from rushed planning and pre production (and I have confirmation from peers in other studios that its the same everywhere) and thus, animators get to enjoy having to fix most of the issues that were not thought out in earlier stages of production ( or even worse, issues deliberetely ignored knowing it would be fixed by the animators ). Although on that last point, animators share the bad end of the stick with post production team.
Sorry for all that spoiled millenial venting garbage but I really needed to get this out of my chest. My motivation has been at an all time low this past year and I need to fix that. I think I'll try to approach another angle of the industry, ideally a bit more oriented developpement or pre production like storyboards, designs or even visual dev, who knows... I'll make an update if I ever do so.
Ps : I havent forgotten about those toonboom tuts I promised, I swear ;>
I myself am about to start a new job that I spent WEEKS preparing for and several days doing 'auditions' for, and the more I learn about the actual position the more it begins to sound like general grunt work and not what I had in my mind when I went in for the audition. If that turns out to be true, I don't think I'll stick around for very long even after all the time and effort I put into getting it.
The important thing is that you gave it a chance, and stuck it out long enough to make an educated decision on how it was working out for you. But if it's not what you want to see yourself doing year after year - and your financial situation allows you to seek other options right away - move on. Find something that fulfills you, or at least feels like you get more reward out of it (monetary or otherwise) than you feel you have to sacrifice for it.
When I worked as a QA tester, I didn't mind the hour long commute every day or the 8 hour shifts because the games I was testing (Dungeon Crawlers) were FUN for me to work on. Any sacrifices I had to make in my schedule were overwhelmed by the joy I experienced through getting to play those games.
I'm glad you had the courage to have confidence in your feelings and to find the strength to take yourself out of an environment you didn't like, without losing your love for animation as a whole.
Also I haven't quitted my animation job yet, I've been pondering on the idea for the past couple weeks but haven't taken the final decision to leave yet ( though its sure to come soon).
Anyways, wish you the best of luck for your upcoming job, and I hope it turns out being a good experience for you!
It's all right to vent, and maybe switching jobs in animation will be refreshing for you. Have you looked into switching to full length features (Movies)? Their production cycle is a little more relaxed since they have a longer schedule and aren't pumping out animations on such short deadlines.
As for the feature thing, yes, I definitely plan on applying for feature films, especially since we always get a couple nice 2d features produced every year here in France. The only problem is, its really tough to get a job on those cause there is a ton of crazy talented people out there, and even if its where the wages are the lowest, everyone wants their piece working on a film. Personnaly I think I'll try to apply to the soon-to-be-pitched ''Calamity'' by Remy Chayé.
I'm much happier in my current field.
I hope you find a job you like! It really isn't easy, but I'm sure you have the skills for it!
Ahh, business.
It's good you took the time to look back at it and take a lesson from where you are and where you want to be - you've got some damn solid animation to say the least, and there's definitely plenty to be said for very "professional" places just not jiving well with those who want to create things they can be genuinely proud of as opposed to just making money. There are, at least, a lot more options these days what with crowdfunding and indie projects, so I like to hope that many artists can find some way or place to monetize their passions and everyone benefits.
Good luck!